论文总字数：36449字

摘 要

1. Introduction 1

1.1 Need for the study

1.2 Research purpose

2. Literature Review 4

2.1 Self-efficacy

2.1.1 Definition of self-efficacy

2.1.2 Functions of self-efficacy

2.2 Motivation

2.2.1 Definition of motivation

2.2.2 Classification of motivation

2.3 Related empirical studies

2.3.1 Related empirical studies abroad

2.3.2 Related empirical studies at home

2.3.3 Problems in previous studies

3. Research Methodology 9

3.1 Research questions

3.2 Subjects

3.3 Instruments

3.4 Data collection

4. Results and Discussion 11

4.1 Descriptive statistics

4.2 Results of the two-way ANOVA

4.3 Discussion

4.3.1 Main effect of oral proficiency on speaking self-efficacy

4.3.2 Main effect of learning motivation on speaking self-efficacy

5. Conclusions 14

5.1 Major findings

5.2 Implications

References 16

Acknowledgments 18

Appendix I Questionnaire of English Oral Learning Motivation 19

Appendix II Questionnaire of English Speaking Self-efficacy 22

Abstract

In this study, 20 English majors are surveyed to explore the relationship among oral English self-efficacy, oral English learning motivation and oral English proficiency. Two questionnaires are conducted to learn students’ level of speaking self-efficacy and oral learning motivation. In addition, the results of TEM-4 oral exam conducted by the participants in May 2018 are used to measure their English proficiency. The research questions in this paper are as follows:

(1) Does the oral English proficiency of English majors have a significant main effect on speaking self-efficacy?

(2) Does the oral learning motivation of English majors have a significant main effect on speaking self-efficacy?

(3) Is there any interactive effect of English majors’ oral English proficiency and oral learning motivation on their speaking self-efficacy?

The results of two-way AVONA show that English majors’ oral proficiency has a significant main effect on speaking self-efficacy (F (1 20) = 9.652, p lt; 0.01). The students with higher level of oral English proficiency have higher level of self-efficacy. At the same time, oral learning motivation also has a significant main effect on speaking self-efficacy (F (1 20) = 4.478, p = 0.05). However, there is no interactive effect of oral English proficiency and oral learning motivation on speaking self-efficacy, F (1 20) = 0.498, p gt; 0.05.

Due to the internal interrelationships among speaking self-efficacy, oral learning motivation and oral English proficiency, teachers should strengthen the psychological counseling of students after failure, and actively guide students to enhance their self-confidence and improve their skills in coping with oral English difficulties.

Keywords: English speaking self-efficacy; oral English learning motivation; oral proficiency

中文摘要

该研究通过调查20名英语专业学生的口语自我效能感、口语学习动机，探讨两者与英语口语水平之间的关系。

为了解学生英语口语的自我效能感以及学习动机，本研究采用了问卷调查的方式。另外，本研究采用了受试学生于2018年5月进行的英语专业四级口语考试的成绩，用于衡量学生的口语水平。本论文的研究问题有以下三个：

1. 英语专业学生的口语水平对口语自我效能感是否存在显著主效应?
2. 英语专业学生的口语学习动机对口语自我效能感是否存在显著主效应?
3. 英语专业学生的口语水平和口语学习动机对口语自我效能感是否存在交互效应?

双因素方差分析结果表明，英语专业学生口语水平对口语自我效能感具有显著主效应(F (1 20) = 9.652, p lt; 0.01)。口语水平较高的学生，口语自我效能感水平也较高。同时，口语学习动机与口语自我效能感也具有显著主效应（F (1 20) = 4.478, p = 0.05)。这说明学生口语学习动机的水平高低与口语自我效能感是密切联系的。但是，口语水平和口语学习动机对口语自我效能感不存在交互效应，F(1 20) = 0.498, p gt; 0.05。

本研究对英语口语教学的启示是：由于口语自我效能感、口语学习动机和口语水平的相互影响，我们需要提高学生的口语自我效能感以及口语学习动机。这就需要教师加强对学生失败后的心理疏导，积极引导学生增强自信心和提高应对英语口语困难的技巧。

关键词：英语口语自我效能感；英语口语学习动机；口语水平

Introduction

English as a worldwide language plays a more and more important role in the world communication. Thanks to reform and opening up, we need more and more foreign exchanges. Therefore, high oral English proficiency becomes the pursuit of many university students. Based on statistic results, Rivers, a famous American applied linguist, demonstrates that the percentages of listening, speaking, reading and writing in communication are 45%, 30%, 16% and 9% respectively, among which listening and speaking account for 75%[1]. However, oral English teaching is still a short slab in China. Most students’ spoken English is still far from the expected level, because they cannot communicate fluently in English.

Self-efficacy belongs to the category of psychology, which was proposed by the American psychologist Bandura in 1977. It refers to the individual’s speculation and judgment on whether he is capable of completing a certain behavior[2]. Self-efficacy can have an impact on how students foster their hobbies and interests, establish their goals and deal with difficulties they encounter, as well as how to think, regulate their emotion and develop their potency[3]. A large number of studies have confirmed that students’ English speaking self-efficacy is crucial in English learning[4]. Students with a high sense of self-efficacy can make full use of class time to achieve good learning results, thus laying a foundation for the improvement of English ability.

For English majors, their speaking self-efficacy is greatly affected by their oral proficiency. Although some scholars have discussed the relationship between oral English teaching, English learning motivation and self-efficacy, the study on the relationship between self-efficacy, motivation and oral English proficiency is still insufficient.

1.1 Need for the study

Studies have shown that since the sense of self-efficacy is more specific to the individual belief of specific task activities, it has the particularity of the field. Therefore, the general sense of self-efficacy cannot well predict the degree of confidence in completing specific field tasks[5]. In that case, according to the specific characteristics of different language modules, many scholars have discussed the relationship between self-efficacy and specific language skills such as writing, reading and listening. In addition, the research on the self-efficacy and oral proficiency of English majors is not sufficient. Therefore, it is necessary to study on different levels of oral English and put forward specific measures to improve the speaking self-efficacy of English learners, so as to further improve the level of English learners’ oral English.

In addition, oral English learning, one of the key components in English language learning, is undoubtedly affected by English language learns’ oral English learning motivation. It is universally believed that motivation correlates highly with second or foreign language learning, and that a successful language learner is usually highly motivated[6]; and according to Corder, “Given motivation, anyone can learn a language”[7]. However, most of learners in college classroom play a passive role in learning speaking. According to some surveys, Chinese students do not like listening and reading in their free time, let alone speaking[8]. It can be seen that students’ oral English proficiency are generally not high and it is necessary to find effective ways to solve this dilemma.

Therefore, it is necessary to study whether there is a main effect or an interaction among speaking self-efficacy, oral proficiency and oral learning motivation, and then put forward corresponding methods to improve speaking self-efficacy and motivation, so as to fundamentally promote students’ oral output ability.

1.2 Research purpose

Due to the importance of oral English and the lack of related research of the influence of speaking self-efficacy on oral English proficiency, combined with oral English learning motivation is a key factor on the oral English, this study’s purpose is to find out:

(1) Does the oral English proficiency of English majors have a significant main effect on speaking self-efficacy?

(2) Does the oral learning motivation of English majors have a significant main effect on speaking self-efficacy?

(3) Is there any interactive effect of English majors’ oral English proficiency and oral learning motivation on their speaking self-efficacy?

Literature Review

2.1 Self-efficacy

2.1.1 Definition of self-efficacy

The concept of self-efficacy was firstly put forward by Bandura in 1977, which also can be interchanged to be self-efficacy beliefs, perceived self-efficacy or perceived beliefs. Bandura proposed different definitions of self-efficacy in different times.

In 1977, Bandura pointed out that self-efficacy is a specific kind of expectancy concerned with a person’s beliefs in his or her ability to perform a certain action and a set of behaviors required to produce an outcome. Then in 1986, He added self-efficacy as people’s judgments of their capabilities to organize and execute courses of action required attaining designated types of performances[9]. And in Human Agency in Social Cognitive Theory, he believed that self-efficacy refers to people’s beliefs of their capabilities to perform the actions that will control and influence their life.

Despite the fact that many scholars give their understanding of definition of self-efficacy, generally Bandura’s definition in 1986 is the most commonly used[10][11][12][13]. And as a further exploration of social cognitive theory, self-efficacy mainly concentrates on people’s cognitive factors in the triadic reciprocal determinism. Self-efficacy doesn’t refer to the specific and practical skills or abilities, nor the pure judgments of the one’s abilities. Instead, it is concerned with one’s confidence towards whether or not he can accomplish a task, and it refers to one’s feelings, perception and realization of his abilities towards one aspect of himself.

2.1.2 Functions of self-efficacy

Bandura designates that the functions of self-efficacy as follows[2]:

(1) Affecting people when they choose activities or engage in certain activities. The stronger one’s sense of self-efficacy in a certain aspect, the more active one will be in this aspect and the longer the activity lasts. Instead, people avoid activities they feel they are not up to.

(2) Affecting people’s way of thinking and attribution. People with a high sense of self-efficacy can focus their attention on solving difficulties, and tend to attribute their failures to their lack of efforts. However, people with low sense of self-efficacy tend to pay too much attention to personal shortcomings and activity difficulties when facing difficulties, instead of focusing on the way to solve problems. As a result, they increase their pressure and always feel that the reason why they failed is they don’t have the ability to do that.

(3) Affecting people’s emotion. If someone has a high level of self-efficacy, they may have confidence in solving environmental events. When encountering problems, they may take active measures to solve them. Their expectations are positive. Instead of being negative and depressed, they are optimistic.

2.2 Motivation

2.2.1 Definition of motivation

In the field of motivation and second language acquisition, the most influential are Gardner and Lambert of Canada and their colleagues, whose research in this area began in the 1950s and continue to this day. Gardner amp; MacIntyre defines motivation as “the purposeful efforts made by individuals to learn a second language”[14].

Motivation in English learning refers to learners’ desire and motivation to learn English. English learning motivation is the psychological motivation that directly promotes English learners to achieve a certain goal in English learning[15]. This is manifested by a thirst for English learning and knowledge. Motivated English learners are often with excellent results; however, unmotivated English learners usually feel stressful and their results are not ideal.

2.2.2 Classification of motivation

As early as the late 1950s, Gardner and Lambert began to study the motivation of second language learning[16]. They emphasize the sociality of language learning and divide it into integrative motivation and instrumental motivation[17]. The former means that learners have a real interest in communicating with others in second language and hope to participate in or integrate into the social activities of the second language. The latter means that learners learn the target language for instrumental purposes, such as finding a good job, passing an exam, reading newspapers and so on. Some researchers believe that integrative motivation can better promote language learning, because it is rooted in the learner’s personality and has a long-term impact on individual efforts rather than relying on external pressure. But the two are not diametrically opposed. For some learners, the two may work together.

2.3 Related empirical studies

2.3.1 Related empirical studies abroad

The research has shown that self-efficacy influence academic motivation, learning, and achievement[18]. Since self-efficacy, which is introduced as a key component in social cognitive theory, is a context-specific assessment of competence to perform certain tasks, there are a cluster of specific self-efficacy beliefs, like sport self-efficacy, social self-efficacy, mathematics self-efficacy, writing skills self-efficacy, art self-efficacy, internet self-efficacy, language self-efficacy, English self-efficacy, and so on. Thus, there are many studies on self-efficacy in different situations.

Schunk employs path analysis to reproduce the correlation among instructional treatment, self-efficacy, persistence, and achievement[19]. This model displays a direct of treatment on achievement, a direct of self-efficacy on persistence and achievement, an indirect effect of treatment on persistence through self-efficacy, and an indirect effect of treatment on achievement through persistence and self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is as the regarded as the most effective predictor of achievement.

2.3.2 Related empirical studies at home

There is a lot of research on self-efficacy at home as well. They mainly focus on the following aspects: (1) students with different grades, sex and academic performance. The self-efficacy of junior high school students, senior high school students and college students tends to increase gradually with the improvement of grades[20]. Zhang Min et al. independently studies the efficacy of middle school students, and the results show that with the increase of grade, the efficacy of middle school students presents a trend of high-low-high[21]. Male students have stronger efficacy than female students, and the efficacy of middle school students with different performance levels increases with the improvement of performance level. (2) Research on self-efficacy and other factors. Chen Shunsen ’s study shows that there is a significant negative correlation between high school students’ self-efficacy and test anxiety, and academic self-efficacy has a significant negative predictive effect on test anxiety[22]. Students with high academic self-efficacy show lower test anxiety. Shan Zhiyan studies the self-efficacy of primary school students and its relationship with independent learning strategies, and the results show that the self-efficacy of primary school students is significantly correlated with independent learning strategies, and the self-efficacy of primary school students can predict the application of independent learning strategies[23]. In addition, the self-efficacy had a certain predictive effect on how middle school students deal with problems. (3) Taking self-efficacy as one of the influencing factors. In recent years, educational psychologists have begun to study self-efficacy as a factor affecting academic achievement. Hu Guiying et al. discusses self-efficacy has direct influence to the academic achievement of middle school student, attribution of success indirectly influence the junior middle school students’ academic achievement by influencing the learning ability and self-efficacy, and learning ability and self-efficacy can also affect cognitive strategy through the indirect effects of junior middle school students’ academic achievement[24]. On the whole, the studies of self-efficacy at home mainly lie in the exploration of the correlation between self-efficacy beliefs and academic motivation, choice making, self-monitoring, self-control, academic achievements, learning strategies, and so on. Besides, the studies of self-efficacy in China also probe into how to enhance self-efficacy beliefs and how to construct self-efficacy scales in different areas.

However, studies on speaking self-efficacy are scarce. Li Kun believes that college students’ English learning motivation, self-efficacy and autonomous learning behavior are significantly positively correlated, and teachers should improve students’ self-efficacy and learning motivation, especially their intrinsic motivation[25]. The research of Song Yanni indicates improving self-efficacy can further improve students’ oral ability. Zhang Zhu points out that self-efficacy is the factor most closely related to oral strategies and oral proficiency among the research factors, and self-efficacy can promote the correct use of oral strategies, so as to further improve oral proficiency[26].

For learning motivation, most researchers have studied the overall English learning motivation like Gao Yihong, while the research detailed to the oral learning motivation is similar to the research on self-efficacy, that is, it is usually studied together with other factors[27].

2.3.3 Problems in previous studies

It can be seen that whether speaking self-efficacy or oral learning motivation, previous studies are still in the minority. Therefore, this paper will discuss the relationship among speaking self-efficacy, oral learning motivation and oral proficiency, and whether there is any interaction among speaking self-efficacy, oral learning motivation and oral proficiency of English majors, so as to bring more reference suggestions for improving the oral proficiency of English major students.

3. Research Methodology

3.1 Research questions

The present study investigates the relationship among speaking self-efficacy, oral learning motivation and oral proficiency.

The specific research questions are as follows:

(1) Does the oral English proficiency of English majors have a significant main effect on speaking self-efficacy?

(2) Does the oral learning motivation of English majors have a significant main effect on speaking self-efficacy?

(3) Is there any interactive effect of English majors’ oral English proficiency and oral learning motivation on their speaking self-efficacy?

3.2 Subjects

The research subjects are 20 students from a class of English majors in Nanjing Tech University.

3.3 Instruments

In this study, two questionnaires and TEM-4 oral exam score are used to collect the data. Two questionnaires are included in this study, namely, the Questionnaire of Speaking English Self-efficacy and Questionnaire of Oral English Learning Motivation.

The first one is the Questionnaire of Speaking English Self-efficacy. This questionnaire is divided into two parts: the first part is designed to cover the information concerning subjects’ personal information, as age, time of learning English and etc. The second part, also the main part of the questionnaire, is the Speaking English self-efficacy scale. The Speaking English Self-efficacy Scale consists of 13 items altogether. The scoring of the scale is designed as the standard 5 point Likert scale (1= completely no, 2= normally no, 3= sometimes yes, 4= normally yes, 5= completely yes)[28].

The second questionnaire is the Questionnaire of English Oral Learning Motivation. It is made up of three parts: the first part indicates the research purposes and instructions for completing the questionnaire; 22 items to survey learner autonomy are included in the second part and 20 items for investigating motivation types are under the third part. Each answer ranges from “completely untrue of me” to “completely true of me”[29]. Correspondingly, 1 refers to “completely untrue of me”; 2 refers to “almost untrue of me”; 3 refers to “sometimes true of me”; 4 refers to “almost true of me”; and 5 refers to “completely true of me”.

The results of TEM-4 oral exam conducted by the participants of this study in May 2018 are used to measure their English oral proficiency. According to the outline, the oral exam consists of three parts :(1) retelling the story (three minutes after listening to the story twice); (2) extemporaneous speech (three minutes for extemporaneous speech after preparing according to the given topic); (3) dialogue (three minutes for each of the roles, four minutes for each of the roles). The topic mainly revolves around a point of view, the interlocutor needs to say whether he agrees with this point of view and give sufficient reasons, and finally put forward his own point of view. Such topics are mostly related to college life.

3.4 Data collection

According to the results of TEM-4 oral exam that author collects, the author organizes them to fill in the questionnaires together in 40 minutes in April of 2019. Twenty students fill in the questionnaire, and a total of 20 questionnaires are collected.

Results and Discussion

4.1 Descriptive statistics

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